


Waiting Is The Price of Freedom

by gaialux



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Homeless, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5270105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Bender is a homeless youth and Brian picks up a project for the newest social work club at school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting Is The Price of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenet/gifts).



> Set somewhat post-movie, but very AU (ie. imagine it were only Brian, Claire, and Andy in detention). This fic also contains (canon) references to suicidal ideation. Thank you to Kat for the beta!
> 
> I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, greenet!

_They gave me the option to sit through two semesters of counselling or do one and then join a new club based on helping others. I choose the latter - I_ like  _the idea of the latter - and now I'm left to write a report on exactly what happened during this semester._

_It goes something like this._

 

* * *

Brian slides into a desk only a few minutes late. He still feels bad about it - first club meeting and all - but the classroom is situated way off to the side and the numbers had stopped just prior. At least he eventually found it.

"Welcome back to a new semester, everyone."

Brian doesn't recognise the teacher at the front of the room, but the frilled cursive of Ms. Hale on the blackboard clues him in quickly.

"We have some old faces...and some new ones." She smiles brightly right at Brian and he finds his face heating up. _Dammit_ . "But we're _all_ still new here and feeling things out. I'll be trying not to breathe down your backs once things get moving along, but let’s start with some basics. Any questions before we begin?"

A hand shoots up, and Brian recognises it as Elaine Stacey from his English class. He'd never exactly take her as someone with an interest in social justice, but then again he'd never really heard her speak in class before.

Miss Hale points at her. "Elaine."

"Last semester you said something about a project...?" Elaine's voice hardly travels through the sparsely populated classroom. Maybe that's why she doesn't speak up often.

"Ah, yes." Ms. Hale clicks her fingers together like she's just remembered a bright spark of an idea. Which, Brian supposes, she kind of had just been reminded of. "This semester you have one simple task: make a difference in someone's life."

 

Brian tries hard to pay attention in the club meeting. He really does. But after Ms. Hale says _make a difference in someone's life_ and wanders off to print some tests for her class tomorrow, everyone gets to talking and Brian just repeats the teacher's words over and over again to himself. By the time he gets home that evening, a chunk of his life seems to be missing and Brian, surprisingly, hardly cares.

"Dinner's waiting in the oven," his mother says as he walks in the door. Her lips are pursed in the same firm line they've been since that fateful day of flare gun meets locker, but at least she's speaking in more words than  _is this the first time or last time we do this?_ and the interspersed repetition of  _good grades, Brian, you always had such good grades_. It's the past tense of the latter that really bothers him.

He walks into the kitchen and grabs out his plate of chicken and vegetables. At least with everyone having eaten and his dad still at the office, Brian could sneak into the study and switch on the TV. It was all news, game shows, and some Spanish soap opera as Brian flashed his way through the channels.

Eventually he settles on one of the local news channels, watching a school band that has been given a grant. Brian had always wanted to learn an instrument - guitar, ideally, but chances are his parents would draw the line at keyboard or violin - but band coincided with physics club. The news program cuts away to another, now the camera is focused on a sign saying A Just Harvest.

"This year, A Just Harvest estimates they will serve over 50,000 meals to people in need," the news reporter says. "From the old to the young - homelessness does not discriminate."

Brian chews on his mouthful of potato but finds it difficult to swallow down as the camera pans around a room. At least half the shown people are as young -  _younger_ \- than Brian himself. Most trying to avoid the camera, a few deadpan and uncaring, then the guy continuously in the background shooting people the bird. Brian watches him follow the camera around and around and around until his mother yells at him for not eating in the dining room and that is that.

 

Brian comes awake with a start. It's his room - the same one he's been sleeping in his entire life - but it feels wrong somehow. Disorienting. He has to sit up and look around, blinking hard, until his eyes adjust and the familiar view of _Star Wars_ posters become the stabilizing point of memory. Because otherwise it's too much like his locker on that early Monday morning. Dark, abandoned, and the gun glistening in a tiny sliver of dawn light.

 

Even though it's a Saturday, Brian sets his alarm and jumps out of bed as soon as its buzzing began. Until he's completed his assignment, he plans to treat every day as a school day. A nine-to-three schedule of making a difference. Somewhere. Somehow.

He's still a little sketchy on the further details, but that news story on the soup kitchen is still sitting at the back of his mind and seems as good an idea as any. Open-ended but specific. All Brian has to do is work up the ability (okay - _courage_ \- but no one would deny how intimidating it's going to be to just walk right in and announce "hey, how can I help out your life?") to go inside the shelter.

"Planning some homework today, Brian?" his mother asks as soon as Brian appears on the landing. Eyebrows still creased and lips still firm.

Brian licks his lips. "Heading to the library." It's a lie, but seems easier to explain. "A good environment so I can look up everything I need then and there, you know? Plus Mikey might come help me out--"

"Okay," his mother says. There is no emotion in her voice and that hurts Brian somewhere deep inside, making his throat burn. It doesn't matter. He'll make it up to her soon.

Grabbing his backpack seems like a good addition to this whole charade and Brian makes a show of stuffing in his shop workbook. For the first time in weeks, his mother’s lips turn upward in the slightest imitation of a smile.

So lying to his mother is the only thing that makes her happy now? The guilt's going to eat away at Brian. But, maybe, being able to help someone would assuage it at least a little? Brian doesn't know, but there's no point turning back now.

"I'll be home in time for dinner!" He calls, before closing the front door behind him and stepping out into the cold.

 

A Just Harvest doesn't open until 9 that day, and Brian is a little wary of standing too close to the smoking teenagers that have been outside since before Brian arrived. One - the guy - keeps glancing up at Brian as he flicks ash onto the sidewalk. Brian tries looking away but the corner of his gaze always makes its way back there. The guy is always looking. After a while, it's with a smirk.

"Hey, kid!" he calls.

Brian jumps, and not just inwardly.

"I'm not gonna eat you," the guy calls. "Though god knows I'm hungry enough to."

Brian tries to smile and opens his mouth but nothing in the way of words comes out. _Great._ He wants to help someone but can't even speak to _one_ of them. Instead he just continues to stand there awkwardly until such a time as the owner/operator/however-this-works guy comes and opens the door.

"Better get a move on, kid."

Brian jumps (again, _again_ ) at the voice behind him and spins around to face an older man. He swallows over the lump in his throat. This was a bad idea.

"Come on," the man says. His voice is gruff and he stands like a giant over Brian. Brian takes a step back. "You don't want to miss out on breakfast, do you?"

 _Oh._ So he was being nice. Brian really needs to get a grip and shut up the little judgemental voice that somehow sounds like his father in the back of his brain.

"Thank you," Brian says. His voice is shaky, but he can't help that.

The man smiles and walks ahead to the door. Brian follows him. At least until a hand shoots out and almost sends Brian stumbling backwards. He looks up to see the smoking guy from before.

"You're not one of us," he says around the butt of a cigarette. He blows out a puff of smoke and Brian coughs it away. "See. You agree, don't you, Allison?"

The girl next to him averts her eyes to the ground and says nothing. _Allison_. At least Brian is learning names, right? Maybe he could speak to her. She seemed shy rather than intimidating.

"She does," the guy says. "So why don't you tell us what you're doing here."

Brian's voice is gone again. So much for figuring all these people were friendly. The guy stares down at him with stone-cold eyes. If Brian tried to run, he's pretty sure he'd be chased down.

"I...I have a school project," Brian manages to squeak out. "I need to help someone. How...how about you?"

The guy's eyes narrow. He drops the cigarette to the ground where it slowly begins to smoulder out.

"So you're here to feel sorry for us?" He says. He doesn't give Brian a chance to answer with a quick _no_ and further explanation. He takes a step forward. "How about you fuck off?"

Brian decides to take the advice and scrams.

 

Brian's back in the club classroom again with a sense of frustration looming all around. He hasn't been back to the shelter and has come up blank with any other ideas. It doesn’t help that his mother is breathing down his neck about getting all his grades back to an A (and Brian's sure she'd have no complaints if it were an A+) average.

Ms. Hale isn’t actually in the classroom today - instead Elaine has taken on the role of de facto president. She's a lot more confident here than in English class.

"So we all have our assignment," she’s saying. Her voice carries further on this second meeting, too. "Anybody have ideas yet?"

People do. From can drives to donations to offering themselves as tutors. It seems everybody had spent the week coming up with at least a basic idea...except Brian. Who has begun to falter.

"How about you, Brian?"

Of course Elaine had to single him out.

"I, uh..." He can feel himself blushing and wishes this wasn't how his body chose to deal with just about everything. "I did try and talk to some people, but they took it as me feeling sorry for them and..." He trails off, lost.

Elaine gives him what comes across as a sympathetic look. "I'm sure you'll find something."

"You know..."

Brian turns around to see a guy he doesn't recognise from around school staring intently at him. "Yeah?" Brian asks.

"Sometimes, when you properly help someone, they won't be sure you've done anything at all."

 

* * *

 

Brian decides to go back at the same time on Saturday. He figures it gives him the best chance of meeting up with the nameless guy and...Allison? He thought that's what her name had been, anyway. His mother just seems happy with the perception that Brian is studying each weekend, and he's finding it easier and easier to lie to her. Bad, maybe, but he'll make up for it with actually completing all his homework to an optimal level this semester.

He's right - they are standing out front when he gets there. Brian wonders if they ever even go inside once the place opens. Still, at least it means he can speak to them with nobody else around to add to the pressure. This time he isn't going to show fake sympathy or anything of the kind. He'll just be him. He'll be authentic. He'll help without making them sure he's done anything at all.

"Hey," Brian says. Okay, so the nonchalance comes across as a little comedic - it’s still an improvement on the last interaction.

"Why the fuck are you back?" The guy asks. It's a snarl, really, complete with an upturned lip.

"I just wanted to talk," Brian says. "About anything - what's up?"

Instead of an answer, Brian gets a faceful of smoke. "Nothing," is the guy's eventual response.

"What's your name?"

"What's it to you?"

So. This isn't going to plan.

"I'm Brian," Brian says. He offers his hand. Neither of them take it. Brian lowers it slowly and scratches the back of his neck. "I, uh, I'm sorry about what happened last time."

"Right," the guy says. "Well, I'm Bender and this is Allison. Now will you _please_ fuck off?"

At least it's progress.

 

* * *

 

Brian keeps going back.

Day, after day, after day. If he doesn't have class or isn't studying (which he still does - really - because those grades haven’t stopped being important), he's hanging around A Just Harvest or the nearby park he's discovered Bender and Allison spend a lot of time in. At first they ignore him. Then there's some talking. But after Bender offers Brian a cigarette and Brian rejects it, they go back to phase one of dirty looks and stilted conversation.

He doesn't say much about it to the rest of the group - just mentions vaguely that he's helping out some homeless kids. It seems better to keep silent and help Bender in his own way. Or to try and talk. Or just to be in the same vicinity. Or anything, really.

Until, one day, completely out of the blue, Bender sits down next to him and they begin to talk.

"What're you really doing here?" Bender asks as they sit together on the park bench. He's still smoking and Brian is twisting his hands together because it's _so hard_ to make eye contact with Bender now that conversation is actually happening.

Brian shrugs. "I want to help. Is that so bad?"

Bender drops his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his foot. "I guess not, but plenty of people have already tried. What makes you so special?"

Good question. Brian can hardly look at Bender, let alone think of a specific way to help him. It seems like all his ideas would come across as condescending - food, shelter, _money_. Maybe Bender would take them, but Brian doesn't think they're enough.

"Nothing," Brian says. The truth, for once. "But I'm here, aren't I?"

Bender says nothing, but he also doesn't stare at Brian with that same hate-filled expression that had followed him around for weeks.

More progress.

 

"Do you like school?" Bender asks one day. Back at the park, but this time sitting on swings. Brian remembers, once, seeing a girl and boy sitting on these swings and holding hands. He tries to push that image from his mind.

"It's okay," Brian says. He kicks at the wood chips under him. The other day, they uncovered a syringe. Bender and Allison shouldn't be out here - though Allison seems to be spending more time back at home. Which is good, at least. "Something you have to do, you know?"

"I dropped out at 14," Bender says. "Didn't need to do it - so I didn't."

"Why did you drop out?" Brian asks. "Is that why you ended up out here?"

"Yeah," Bender says. He looks down at his feet. "Something like that."

 

They never move from the park.

Sometimes Allison joins them, but she has yet to speak. Bender tells Brian that Allison's said five words in the two years he's known her:

"Life's unsatisfying; Allison; Wanna fuck?"

In that order, spaced out over a few months.

"She's a self-confessed sex maniac," Bender says. "Never seen her hook up with anyone, but."

"So you didn't?"

"Nope." Bender crushes his cigarette into the ground. "I do things my way - I don't need her."

Bender can say that, but Brian has noticed he seems lonely when Allison is gone for long. Not that Bender ever says anything - strong, stoic, everything that Bender thinks makes him a tough guy - but he'll spend longer with Brian and seem reluctant to leave when the sun goes down and Brian has to go home.

"Do you ever think about going home?" Brian asks. "Like Allison does?"

Bender lets out a bitter laugh full of no humor. "Allison's out here because she thinks she has a point to prove. Because she finds life unsatisfying."

"And why are you here?"

"Because there's nowhere else for me to be."

Brian moves closer and rests his hand on Bender's shoulder. Bender doesn't flinch.

"At least we can be here," Brian says.

Bender snorts indignantly, but he doesn't push away.

 

* * *

 

On the day Bender kisses him it’s wet and cold and the entire world looks hopeless and dark. The kiss cracks Brian's lip and Bender pulls away with a blood smudge across his own. The rain quickly whisks it away.

"What...?" Brian whispers to the world.

"Fuck," Bender mutters. Then, yelling, "FUCK!"

"It's okay..."

"NO!" Bender roars. He shoves Brian up against the brick wall behind them. Water and cold brick seeps through Brian's thin shirt and Bender's eyes are wild. "It's not - how the  _ fuck  _ is this okay?"

Two immediate courses of action come to Brian's mind: run the hell away from there and never look back or--

Brian lurches forward and connects his mouth to Bender's again. He doesn't know where this new-found confidence has come from, but he  _ likes  _ it; especially when he feels Bender pushing back. Lips moving and hands twisting into Brian's hair. The bricks no longer feel cold against Brian's back and he just wants more. More and more until the rain is no longer dripping into Brian's face and instead they're hidden in the shadows of an alley.

"What are you doing?" Bender asks. He doesn't sound nearly so angry.

"Kissing you...?" Brian says, confused.

Bender laughs, sending hot breath washing over Brian's face. He soaks it in. All of it. Then kisses Bender again and again and again.

 

* * *

 

_ Standing there in the alley, my leg and arm pressed tightly against Bender's side, I couldn't ask to be anywhere else.  _ _ Maybe I helped him, or maybe he helped me. I think, though, we just found a way to help each other. _

_ And neither of us were sure we'd done anything at all. _

**Author's Note:**

> [A Just Harvest](http://www.ajustharvest.org/) is a real soup kitchen in Chicago. My knowledge of it is limited to that website, but they seem to do great work for people in need.
> 
> Oh, and the quote told to Brian during the second club meeting? A paraphrase of what God says in the Futurama episode 'Godfellas'.


End file.
